Gathering in a school courtyard to celebrate his win, the pupils started cheering and chanting “Froome!”
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With a third Tour de France title virtually secured on Saturday, Britain’s Chris Froome quickly set his sights towards more glory on the French roads via Rio de Janeiro.
Great riders, including Alberto Condator, Bradley Wiggins, Vincenzo Nibali and Froome himself, had tried and failed to win back-to-back yellow jerseys, but the Kenya-born Briton was not to be denied in 2016 as he unveiled a new string to his bow that caught his rivals off guard. I was just over a kilometre from the finish, the (support) auto was nowhere near by.
Chris Froome is already looking forward to defending the yellow jersey in next year’s Tour de France – just a day after wrapping up his third win.
Froome finished with a 4min 05sec advantage over Frenchman Romain Bardet with Nairo Quintana, the runner-up in 2013 and 2015, third.
Champion cyclist Chris Froome will make his Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic debut and race for Team Sky on the roads of Surrey on Sunday (July 31).
Andre Greipel of Germany won the 21st and last stage over the mostly flat 70-mile leg that concluded with eight laps of a circuit in downtown Paris, finishing on the cobblestones below the Arc de Triomphe.
“It’s a course that suits me well, I took bronze in London in the last Olympics and it would be incredible to medal again this year”, he said, referring to the time trial.
While other big riders of his generation like Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali have all three Grand Tours – the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Spanish Vuelta – Froome plans to keep his focus on the Tour.
“I hope I can be back next year to fight for it again”.
Froome built his success on an impressively strong Team Sky, arguably the best assembled in recent Tour history, being able to rely on domestique de luxe Wouter Poels in the mountains.
“I feel so privileged to be in this position where I’ve always had teammates around me in the race”, Froome said.
“Everyone should believe in Chris Froome…it’s good to see clean guys winning”, said Porte.
Weakened by allergies, the diminutive rider was unable to produce a single risky attack this year.
André Greipel won the final stage of the Tour de France, holding off the late-charging world champion, Peter Sagan, in the traditional sprint on the Champs-Élysées after racing clear of Norway’s Alexander Kristoff on the run-in. The way he won the Tour, there’s no question of whether that form’s going to go anywhere over two weeks. “It’s been heart-warming to get that respect”, he said.
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“With the looks of the team that we’ve got, the inclusion of Steve Cummings, we can be competitive, and to have a result there would be phenomenal”, he added.
